


I have the fire, I have the force, I have the power to make my evil take its course

by BunnyJess



Series: FemJayWeek 2020 [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Abusive Parent, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depictions of Afterlife, Discovering Powers, Earth-3, F/M, FemJayWeek 2020, Fluff and Angst, Hell, I, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, John Grayson is a demon, Mary Grayson is human, Mentioned: other batfam, Murder, Owlman - Freeform, Queen of Hell au, Resistance, Talons, Young Love, and Ra’s, coming into powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26458123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyJess/pseuds/BunnyJess
Summary: Catherine has been banned to the mortal realm for daring to carry a girl, the matriarchal society falling to the iron fist of her husband. Their daughter the court’s, and by extension hell’s, last beacon of hope. Jay’s father just never expects to meet her in this life or the next. One badly rigged bomb by Jokester bringing down his careful house of cards. A queen returned to her throne. Now, she just needs to find a way to have her cake and eat it too, desperately wishing Dick could be with her in all this.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Series: FemJayWeek 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918915
Kudos: 48
Collections: FemJay Week 2020





	I have the fire, I have the force, I have the power to make my evil take its course

At fifteen Jay Todd had been killed in a blast by Jokester and his circus. She’d been so pissed off at getting caught in the building, only there on Bruce’s orders to take out the clown. Both men resulting in her death. The clown blowing his hideout to smithereens rather than let the Owls take him like he deserved.

The teenager had the last laugh though. Upon her death she’d learnt the truth about her family. A family who were far more powerful than she’d ever expected. Catherine has been banned to the mortal realm for daring to carry a girl, the matriarchal society falling to the iron fist of her husband. Their daughter the court’s, and by extension hell’s, last beacon of hope.

She’d been greeted at the gates with dipped heads, each sentry guarding her until they reached a towering palace. The air had a weird quality to it, almost shimmering around the imposing structure. It was only as she stepped through the front door that she discovered why; magic filtered out all the fire and brimstone from the air and blocked out the cacophony of noise she’d just been subjected to.

The palace guards dropped to one knee as she walked passed. Utterly perplexing the teen who was unable to see the ethereal power growing stronger around her with every second spent back where she belonged.

Walking into the throne room caused the chatter to stop. Silence so thick you could hear a pin drop happening quicker than she’d ever experienced.

An almighty roar tore through the room. A man as imposing as the palace stood on a dias looking down at everyone. “You! You little shit! I knew I should have killed your mother instead of banishing her.” He bellowed.

Jay could see the similarities they shared easier than when she’d tried with Willis. It clicked, Willis wasn’t her father…this man was.

“No bother, I’ll lock you away just as I did her once she returned.” He started towards her. Face contorted with anger. “You can waste away in the dungeons as you’re of not use, unlike your mother was.” The lecherous grin told her all she needed to know.

A thrill ran down Jay’s spine, body loosening and shifting into the most subtle of fighting stances. This man, this obviously abusive man, thought he could take _her_. Jay wanted to laugh. No man had taken her in a fight in a very long time, especially not since Owlman trained his Rook.

She didn’t speak, didn’t utter a sound, as she sidestepped his first wild punch. The sentry and guards tried to step in, clearly still loyal to the bloodline and not the dictator who’d taken over. With a wave of her hand they acquiesced, all be it reluctantly and only after she’d accepted one of their swords.

With a smirk on her face and laughter in her eyes, the former Talon graduate twirled. Her body moved in a sinful dance. Blade singing through the air. The shiny hellfire forged weapon a distraction from her true goal.

The man raised his hands to block. His side now open. Jay reached forwards and stole the dagger from his belt. A jewel encrusted handle leading to an intricately engraved blade.

She could have killed him. She could have ensured that when the dagger plunged into his torso it hit everything vital to end him quickly.

That was too merciful.

Even before Bruce had found her on the streets Jay had her own way of taking down those who sought her body without her consent. Now, this pathetic man thought she’d go down easy.

Blood so dark it looked almost black sprayed out as she ripped the blade from his lower abdomen. Sure he would still die, it just wouldn’t be as quick as a severed aorta. The disbelief on his face making her laughter ring out.

A push of her hand and he fell to the floor. Her boot coming to rest on his chest as blood pooled under him. Crouching down to ensure he was looking at her, seeing it was his daughter who’d taken him down.

“You might have won against a woman whose scared of you, but you forgot one thing going up against me.” Her voice was oddly calm, unsettling everyone in the room. “I’ve been trained to fight by the very world you thought would destroy me. I am, and always will be, stronger than you.”

The sentry who’d been called to lead her from the gates stepped forward, gaze meeting her’s. It was uncanny, the familiarity she found there. It was reminiscent of her Dickie. “Welcome home Your Highness. The resistance is glad to have the rightful ruler back.”

He dropped his gaze, sadness and guilt radiating off him worse than Bruce when Dent had shot Dick as he’d shielded her. “I am sorry we were unable to protect Queen Catherine from him.”

“There is no need to be sorry.” Jay said as she stepped off the dying man. Hand coming up to rest on the sentry’s cheek and raise his eyes once more. “His rule is over. What is your name solider?”

“John Grayson, Ma’am, General of the Royal Guard and leader of the resistance.” John said.

He was oblivious to the turmoil now raging through Jay. It couldn’t be the same…and yet. Those eyes.

With the amount she had to learn, the jobs, meetings and other stuff now placed upon her; Jay didn’t notice the days flying by. Weeks turned into months and months turned into years. Her rule more widely accepted than her father’s had been.

Before Jay knew it she was celebrating her twenty-first birthday. The court insisted it be made into a Hell-wide holiday due to the importance of the age where she’d been raised. It was small gestures like that, their refusal to forget where she’d spent the first fifteen years of her life, that warmed her heart. They didn’t dismiss it or try to forget just what her father had caused. They didn’t pity her. Instead they wove traditions she’d been raised with into their own society.

Many of the court had once been human. High level demons who’d not walked the earth as human for centuries. There would be glimpses of their humanity, of the lives they’d once lived or the families they once had, their souls far less corrupted than any mortal believed.

Jay had her own celebration to throw before she could enjoy the one thrown for her. A plan she’d been working on since her murderer had arrived at the gates. His death so traumatic to him that the damage to his throat had transferred with his soul. Voice and annoying cackle gone forever.

Her family had avenged her death. Just as she’d avenged her mother and all those who’d been persecuted under her father’s rule. Now, with free time _finally_ on her hands, she was going back.

****

The Roost was a flutter with activity. Every Owl in attendance for the meeting that would assign them their jobs for the coming week. It was always a trying time, the week of Jay’s birthday only being beaten out by the week of her death in terms of darkness that would befall the oldest members of the parliament drawing away from the rest of them and their duties.

Damian cast his eyes around the room, legs dangling off his father’s favourite chair while he was looking over weapons with Dick. He saw a flicker of light in the corner of his eye and turned towards it. A ring of fire he’d seen multiple times in the past flickered into existence.

“Father!” He shouted. “You may want to come over here.”

The entire parliament gathered. Weapons at the ready. Dick trying to subtly get in front of his younger siblings and failing spectacularly because of how off the week made him.

The flames burst up. A wall of flickering reds, oranges, yellows, and blues. Brimstone filling the air.

They died down just as suddenly as they’d risen. Leaving behind a woman stood in the centre. A woman who looked familiar.

Dick’s breath caught and he let out a sob as he looked at the woman. She looked exactly like he’d always imagined his Jay would have done had she been allowed to grow with him.

The woman stepped towards the eldest Talon. Flicking away all the projectiles thrown her way. Her hand coming to up his cheek just as it had done years earlier to a man similar to him.

“You really do have your father’s eyes.” She whispered as she looked at the man she’d spent years missing. Flings with demons and other beings never quite feeling the same. “Hey Dickie, sorry I couldn’t come back sooner.”

Jay wiped away her own tears. Glad she’d insisted her guards await any calls for assistance. She didn’t want to appear weak to them. Not after all they’d done to try and get her throne back for her.

“Who. Are. You?” Bruce growled out. Clearly frustrated as none of their superior weaponry harmed the woman.

Jay turned to look at him. “Oh fucking heaven,” the curse having slipped into her vocabulary as naturally as running Hell had come to her. “A parliament is far superior to a circus, for it is the difference between those who rule and those who created chaos. Happy now, you big boob?”

It was their key phrase. One they’d changed after her death as even just talking about the circus to ensure they weren’t being controlled or a clone, or any number of other bullshit Bruce had instilled in them all was just too painful. There were only three members of the Owls who knew the original phrase stood in the group.

Damian could see that Dick was about to leap into her arms. He couldn’t have that. Not after what he knew about her and his grandfather. He dived between them, the chair giving him the leverage he needed.

“You stay away from him.” The pre-teen attempted to mimic his father’s growl. It would have worked had Jay not bee familiar with the growl from the man himself.

She smiled down at him. He looked every part an al Ghul as she remembered. “Little One, it’s good to see you again. How is your grandfather these days?”

Her smirk infuriated Damian. Her voice too condescending not to fuel his rage. “He’d be better off dead, but you still supply him with that foul stuff.” Damian tried to keep his arms out to the side, a small shield to his big brother. “If he wants me to return he has another thing coming. I want no part of his useless mission to spread peace.”

At that Jay threw her head back laughing. The sound accompanied by sobs from Bruce, Dick, and Alfred. She reached out and ruffled his hair.

“I needed that, thanks Little One.” She might have appeared strong in that moment. The reactions to her laughter however, that had thrown her off balance. “He was a means to an end. A fling that was good in the sack during business trips.”

“You mean Ra’s and…” Dick looked pale, almost green with this new revelation.

“Oh, Dickie,” she sighed and stepped closer to him. “He saw me as nothing more than a brat after so many centuries stealing _my_ kingdom’s energy to further his own life. I needed him at first, just to weed out those who still supported the illegal ruler before me. He might have been a good fuck, but no one has _ever_ made me feel like you do. It’s why, in the end, I killed him by turning the access to argent energy off.”

It was Damian’s turn to splutter. Although he looked a great deal more relieved than the rest of the Owls at this news. There was the potential for retribution running through their minds.

Seeing this, Jay made the decision to not reveal why Ra’s had lost access to the energy when she’d turned seventeen. He’d tried to coerce her into marriage. All so he could have unlimited access to energy she’d started limiting and placing conditions upon. He’d lost that battle when his soul finally arrived in hell, ravaged by such a long mortal life. Jay had cast him into the deepest depths with the full support of the court.

It took a while for the Owls to relax. Their ever present paranoia making it difficult to fully believe this was their Jay returned. Especially as Cassandra, Duke, and Damian had joined the family only after her death.

Later that day the Queen of Hell found herself laying back in a sun lounger on the patio of her former home. Her family finally satisfied with all the tests they’d done. The paranoia settled far sooner than normal thanks to Damian having met her at fifteen and able to back up her story.

The door behind her creaked open and she smiled to herself. The familiar scent of a demon entering the air. Sure the levels were lower than normal, but that was to be expected with someone who had no idea of their true self and where half their DNA came from.

“Dickie, you going to watch me or finally come join me?” Jay asked.

The first Talon took a deep breath as he stepped up to her, finally entering her eye-line. He looked a mess. The emotional toll of the day getting to the usually erratically free bird.

She shifted her legs so Dick had room to sit down. His hand coming to rest on her thigh as if she’d never left. The motion so familiar to them it had them both freezing.

“I missed you Little Wing.” Dick whispered as if the admission might scare her off. Might make the dream fall away and he’d be back to meaningless flings with a hole forever in his heart.

Jay looked up at him. Her eyes, he’s just now noticing, are no longer the sky-blue he’d found with Bruce in the Alley but a deep navy. Almost as if the darkness of her title corrupted her. _What do I expect from someone who survived death_ he thinks to himself.

Her smile falters as she meets his gaze. “You have your father’s eyes.” She doesn’t mean for it to come out. It’s just, after so long spent seeing a man who was similar to her Dickie and yet wasn’t him it’s all too much at once.

Dick looks utterly destroyed when she realises what she’d let slip. The truth needs to come out before they can go any further. Gently she takes his hands in her’s and starts to talk.

Jay tells him about Catherine and how her abusive husband banished her to claim her throne. That there was a group of resistance fighters both within and outside the Royal Guard. Their best secret operative being one peculiar hereditary demon, not once having had a human soul.

When he’d come to the mortal realm in search of Catherine he’d joined up with the circus being taken in by the Grayson family as one of their own. Eventually he’d fallen in love with Mary and had a bouncy baby boy. The night she’d been murdered had nearly destroyed him, laying on the sandy floor of the centre ring pretending he’d died to so as to maintain the strict rules of his homeland. Each scream his boy let out, each shaking sob and pleading shout breaking his heart further.

Yet he’d remained still. Not so he could remain with Mary, return her soul to his home and stay with her (although that was a perk) but because he refused to reveal the powerful bloodline coursing through his boy. Generations of Royal Guards for the Queens of Hell, an important and dangerous position for any child…let alone one who is only half demon.

He’d left his boy to return to the Royal Guard. Working for the resistance in other ways as he attempted to atone for leaving his son and failing to find the future queen. All the while both teens were discovering that even the most psychopathic hearts could find a compatible other, or so they thought. Their less-than human lineage playing more of a part in their ability to find love and companionship than any aspect of their human side.

By the time Jay has recounted the whole story, the second half to a tale she’s spent years telling John, Dick is crying into her chest. Her shirt soaking through as he lets decades of grief go. Her ran runs along his back. She can feel it awakening, his demon blood, just as she’d felt her own power swell after reclaiming the throne.

When his sobs eventually stop he looks up at Jay. Once again amazed that she’s in reach and not gone forever. There is a smirk she’s intimately familiar with, both receiving from the man himself and having seen the same look when his father looked at Mary occasionally. Just as it’s always done that smirk sends a shiver down her spine. For the first time in years it’s the building of lust and not of long forgotten touches.

Dick kisses have always been all consuming. Jay’s entire being zeroing in on that point of contact, even as his hands delve across her body or tangle in her hair. It’s a mark of how much they’ve missed each other that they don’t hear the door opening a second time.

It’s the weird combination between a groan of annoyance and a heartfelt chuckle that causes them to break apart. Tim and Bruce are stood there. The older man having a small smile twitching his lips while Tim just looked mildly disgusted at having found his brother getting far too handsy with someone.

Bruce stepped forward and brushed a hand over Jay’s head. “I apologise for every time I got annoyed at finding you two like this. I can honestly say I’ve missed it, missed seeing both of you so happy.”

Jay snickered while Dick shot a glare at Tim; the teen having muttered under his breath, “could have lived without seeing both Dick’s happy.”

“Trust me Tim, you’ll get used to it…that is, that’s if, are you staying Jaylass?” The formidable Owlman was floundering. He didn’t want to admit Jay might be leaving them all again so soon. They’d only just gotten her back, she couldn’t do that to them…wouldn’t do it to Dick at the very least.

Dick’s face fell as Jay looked away from the trio. He knew it had all been too good to be true. How could his little Jay have come back to him as some powerful ruler and be expected to stay. He’d just, he’d hoped she would.

A pat to his thigh drew his attention back to her. Jay looked a little glassy-eyed, as if she was holding back tears. “Let me make some calls.” With that she rose and walked back into the house, disappearing down into the cave.

Damian burst onto the patio ten minutes later demanding to know what had happened to cause Jay to run back to Hell. He knew how many days she spent with Ra’s per visit. If she claimed to love Dick as much as they’d all led him to believe she wouldn’t have gone without reason.

Dinner was morose that night. No one wanted to admit she’d run. Even less so admit they’d caused her to. Bruce and Dick were pushing their food around, only eating when Alfred would tap his plate. Tim was sporting new bandages thanks to an attack from Damian, the youngest member of their family deciding he’d been the cause of Jay’s leaving and Dick’s unhappiness.

They didn’t want to suit up. Didn’t want to crawl through the streets looking for any of the numerous targets they were always hunting for. Just as he’d been that morning, Damian was sat in his father’s chair watching the cave.

This time the ring of fire didn’t flicker to life, instead it burst forth and revealed more than just Jay stood within its confines. A trilling birdcall was the only sound for a long moment. Before it’s partner sounded off.

The newer Owls were confused. Bird calls had been a long running joke, something they’d always thought would be good to use in combat but have been shut down every time. As with everything concerning Jay and her death, it solved another piece of the Wayne puzzle.

Dick sprinted forwards and scooped Jay up. Eyes only for her. Ignoring her guests.

“I spoke to some people and needed time to call off certain members of my guard who were convinced I’d returned early due to a disagreement.” She threw a very pointed look over her shoulder. The man with her shrinking back from the flickering of hellfire in her gaze. “We found a solution so we can both be happy. At first my court wished for me to kill you so you could be with me all year round, your more human blood not having a surviving compatibility with my home. However, I can only live up here so long too. My home was without my family for too long.”

Dick cupped her jaw and swiped his thumb over her cheekbone. Understanding radiating from him. Alongside heartbreak.

“Don’t be sad, we came up with an idea. Well, more a very close friend of mine had the idea. We split the year, six months here and six months down south. If any major incident occurs back home I’ll have to leave to deal with it but apart from that I’ll be here as much as you’ll be there. There were two conditions they asked me to consider, and I agreed as they were very lax in the grand scheme of things.” The mischievous twinkle Bruce had very vivid flashbacks of appeared on her face. Vivid because they usually resulted in her crashing one of his cars after a failed _plan_.

“One, you must attend my birthday celebrations for the rest of this week and then we can move back here for a few months. Two, I have to have at least one of the Royal Guard with me while here. So, my Dickie,” Jay stepped back and waved to the couple hiding in her shadow. “I’d like you to meet General John Grayson and his wife Mary.”


End file.
